Using Linear Physical Programming in Optimizing Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a customer-driven quality management and product development system for achieving higher customer satisfaction. It is necessary to determine relationships between customer requirements (CRs) and technical requirements (TRs), as well as correlation among the TRs themselves. Such data are usually ambiguous and fuzzy and people have different judgments about these relations. In this research, to cope with the vague nature of the product development process, a fuzzy group decision-making approach in QFD has been suggested. Also an integrated framework based on QFD and linear physical programming is proposed to determine the fulfillment level of TRs and to maximize overall customer satisfaction. At last, an application for a specific product in ESFARAYEN INSUSTERIAL COMPLEX, which produces heavy steel parts, is presented to illustrate the proposed approach. The results of the model show the optimal level of each technical requirement as well as the allocated budget to each of them so that customer satisfaction of the manufactured product based on four customer requirements has been within ideal and desirable ranges.